Page 61 of Pack Favero

“It’s a possibility, yeah, but I wouldn’t hold my breath,” I offer, hating that I can’t give more. Hating that I couldn’t do more to make sure she wasn’t taken in the first damned place.

Laz flashes me a dangerous smile before he quips, “A possibility is all I need.”

Sharing a look with the others, I ask, “Why? What are you doing?”

“Remember when you asked me to set up her new phone and I put a tracker on there?” he asks, and it’s all he needs to say before I catch on quickly. He’s smirking at me with a lethal edge to it as he nods. “Yes, exactly. Let’s see if I can track our omega.”

Chapter 20

Zira

I feel the bindings around my bare wrists before everything else comes to me in a horror-filled wave, my breathing hindered by a strip of duct tape that tugs uncomfortably at my skin.

Memories assault me as I come to, and I swallow a groan as I squeeze my eyes shut against them. Heading downstairs to get a cup of tea when something woke me from a restful sleep. Startling when the door lock cracked and the front door swung open. The masked figure standing in the doorway. Getting tackled to the ground and hitting my head against the counter. Dazed and disoriented, unable to stop him from wrapping a gag tightly around my mouth before tying my wrists together. Being hauled off into the night in nothing but a pair of Ford’s clean boxer shorts and a shirt I stole from Mac. I had my phone tucked into the waistband, but I can’t feel it now, and I choke back the sudden sob that crawls up my throat as I continue to see all that happened.

My feet dragged through the dirt on the ground, no doubt leaving scrapes on my heels. I remember Hunter losing his grip on me, only once, my knees colliding with thorns and sticks before he hauled me higher in his hold as he stole me from the lake house. Stole me from my alphas.

But worst of all? I remember Mac. I recall so clearly the look of sheer horror that etched its way onto his face as he stepped out of the house, catching sight of Hunter dragging me to the car, before he started running. Started chasing after me, much like he did three days prior. I remember screaming behind my gag, struggling to get free before Hunter could get me in theback of his car. I remember pleading with any god that might exist for Mac to reach me in time, but then something hit me hard in the temple and everything faded away to darkness, my body crumpling as I lost consciousness.

My body hurts, aching from the seated position I’m in, the hard chair and the way my arms have been tied behind the backrest, setting off sparks of agony through my joints. There’s a throbbing in my head that spreads from my temple to every available inch within my skull, the pain so intense that I groan pitifully as I hang my head awkwardly while I try to breathe through it.

Unfortunately, with every breath I take, I inhale nothing but gasoline, burnt rubber, and a sterile, almost hospital-like clean, disinfectant scent that makes the nausea in my stomach roil. I wretch hard enough that my ribs ache.

“I’m sorry, my heart. I’m so sorry,” I hear muttered over the pounding ache in my head, and a thready whine drips from my tongue at the volume of the snivelling voice I recognise just as quickly as I recognise the pungent scent I’ve been trying to escape for weeks.

“Ssh, ssh, it’s okay. I’m here now. I’m sorry, I had to do that. You weren’t listening, I had to do it,” Hunter chants, sounding nothing like the over-trying nerdy charmer he thought he was and now sounding a little more than unhinged. His voice gives away his stress, his scent adding to it with how strong it is, and I wretch again without upheaving anything from my stomach while I’m forced to continue listening to Hunter Gary Johnson the fucking second babbling like a newborn baby. “I didn’t want to hurt you. Of course, I don’t want to hurt you. We’re in love. I don’t want to hurt the woman I love. But you made me do it, my heart. You made me hurt you because you were fighting me. I don’t know why you keep fighting me.”

My eyebrows furrow as I blink my eyes open, cautiouslylifting my head from where it hangs painfully, and I wince when I’m met with a bright-white light that hangs over my head while the edges of the room darken the further I look. I swallow hard as I take in the room I’m being held in, that nausea bubbling in my gut when I see a single cot bed, freshly made white sheets and a comforter tucked to perfection on top of it. There’s a desk nearby with nothing on it, and I assume the chair I’m strapped to at current is the one to match, leaving an empty space where it would otherwise be. The walls are white, a crisp colour that hurts my head even more as I try to take it in, but the thing that sends my heart spiralling and my scent souring so thoroughly that there isn't a drop of sweetness left are the photos.

Over one wall, taking up a large chunk of the whiteness of the paint, are black and white photographs. The sole subject in most of them? Me. The others? My pack, their faces scratched out in an act of clear aggression. Where there are photos Hunter has somehow managed to get of me with one or more members of my pack, he’s carved their faces away, leaving only me behind. There are photos snapped from outside the gym where I teach my girls, or photos of me walking to the care facility with a bouquet of flowers for Mom, or walking back and forth to my car or one of the guys’ cars at North Five. There are photographs of me smiling, laughing, and even some of me squinting or frowning at my computer screen at the library. I spy a photo of me wearing a flowing skirt and chiffon shirt as I stand on a ladder, placing a book back where it belongs, and I shudder when I realize how close he must have gotten to take that one.

There are several more, some that make me want to vomit as it dawns on me that this man has been tracking my every move. He has photos of me at the grocery store, at the bank as I retrieve money to put in an envelope for Barnes so he can accept it without a word as he’s taken to doing, and even some, I realize with a sickening mortification, of me half dressed andwalking around my apartment, the shot taken from somewhere outside.

A muffled sound of disbelief gets trapped behind the duct tape secured to my mouth and I shake my head as I fight against the horror that pierces my heart and head. My eyes prick with tears as I realise the extent of this man’s depravity, and I work up the courage to finally look over at him, finding him clutching at his head as he paces back and forth in front of the partially open door.

“I’m sorry,” he’s muttering, over and over again, smacking his head every second time he passes the door. “I’m so sorry, my heart. I’m so sorry.”

I make a sound again, an odd mixture between a whine and whimper, and Hunter suddenly stops pacing to turn and look at me with crazed eyes and messy dark hair. I swallow any other sound, freezing in my seat, as his nostrils flare and a nasty scowl mars his face.

“You smell like them. I hate it, my heart. You shouldn’t smell like other alphas. I’m your alpha. Me. Only me,” he calmly informs, though there’s nothing calm at all about the man before me. He’s erratic, his movements jerky as he takes a step forward before pausing, clenching his hands as though he wants to touch me but isn’t giving himself permission. “You’ll smell like me soon enough. They’ll be nothing more than a distant nightmare by the time I’ve bonded with you. It’s okay.”

A wave of sickness gurgles in my stomach at the idea of bonding with this psycho, and I feel the first drop of tears as it falls down my cheek and drips off my jaw, hitting my bare leg.

Hunter watches as it drips to my skin, his face changing drastically from deadly calm to worried and caring, the switch so jarring that I flinch back when he rushes toward me. He freezes and frowns, crouching in front of me as he says, “Don’t cry, my heart. I won’t hurt you. Not again. I didn’t want to hurt you, butyou left me no choice.”

I make a muffled sound, and he reaches for my face, those sharp eyes growing angry when I tear away from them before he clamps them hard around my face.

“Don’t make me hurt you, Zira,” he warns, switching up his personality all over again, and I cry out as his hands tighten around my face. Stilling instantly but trembling like a leaf, I don’t move away as his hands lighten before he croons. “Good girl. I’m not going to hurt you.”

And then the bastard tears the tape away, and I cry out as it tears at the very fine hairs on my face, gritting my teeth against the new sparks of pain before I can make any more noises that might piss him off.

Hunter winces and mutters, “Sorry. There. Feel better?”

Swallowing hard, I eye the man carefully while fighting back every emotion and feeling, nodding in answer. I figure, if I’m able to appease him, he might calm down enough to see sense. I just need to lock it all away and act like I’m not absolutely scared out of my mind and internally panicking.

“Good. That’s good,” he says, nodding before dropping his hands to my thighs. My jaw clenches and I tremble, praying that I don’t throw up in his face from the clammy touch of his palms against my skin. He rubs them up and down my thighs as if to comfort me, and another tear falls down my eyes as his sickening scent sticks to my flesh. “There. I’m sorry I had to do this, my heart. But this was the only way to see.”

“See what?” I rasp, my voice high and thready and unlike how it usually is, a clear indication of how high my stress levels are, as if my scent isn’t enough to display it.

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